Bonum Certa Men Certa

Apple's CEO Leaves Just as Apple Probed for Monopoly Abuse

Farewell note



Summary: Apple's CEO leaves the company and hardly provides an explanation; immediately afterwards Apple is accused of market abuse

The announcement about Steve Jobs' departure did not interest us immediately because just about every site covered it and mimicked Wikipedia's pagefest with a mug of some allegedly heroic figure. Apple put it like this:



At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company.


Fab, an Apple sceptic, put it like this:

How long this leave is expected to last is unknown.


People who lurk in this site and are longtime Apple customers tell us that Steve Jobs is a disgusting person and has always been a disgusting person, so his departure from Apple can generally be beneficial to computer users' rights, even freedom (if Apple knows what this word means at all). People must remember that Jobs -- like Gates -- is surrounded by PR people. As one news site rightly points out, details are unknown about this departure and the relevance to Microsoft and Linux was explained by Wayne Borean:

Meanwhile Linus Torvalds is working quietly away. Curiously the operating system kernel that he designed as a college project has now passed Apple in market share on phones, desktops, servers, and will pass Apple on tablets within a year. And the GNU project parts that Richard Stallman inspired are used on top of the Linux kernel to make up a complete operating system have also passed Apple for market share.


We particularly liked Ghabuntu's take on it: "Again, this piqued my curiosity in the sense that here's a company that has some of the most loyal and vociferous users in the world but yet has it's entire charm, charisma and 'lifeline' vested in one man. The natural question that comes to mind here is, can Apple survive the demise of Jobs someday?

"There's also an interesting contrast here between Apple and arch rival Google in that the persona and charm of the latter is almost entirely represented by those six alphabets, completely omitting founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin."

Well, we have a little theory about Jobs' departure. He could probably put that off for a bit, but let us talk about timing and note that Europe has opened a probe into Apple's practices:

Belgium said Monday it would probe Apple's policy of requiring newspapers and magazines to go through the iTunes store to sell subscriptions for the iPad tablet.

Economy Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne asked the country's competition watchdog to review whether Apple abused its dominant position after several Belgian and Dutch editors were notified about the US company's policy.

A recent document from Apple "indicates that from now on, iPad subscriptions will only be sold via iTunes," the minister's office said in a statement.


Vincent Van Quickenborne also lobbied for ludicrous laws that help Microsoft, sometimes while citing Microsoft lobbyists from ACT [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]. This man cannot be trusted and Free software proponents in Belgium do not like him because his policies help Microsoft a lot of the time.

Speaking of hypePads, they lead to lawsuits: "The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) will file criminal charges against the alleged attackers who copied personal information from the AT&T network of approximately 120,000 iPad users, the U.S. Attorney's Office, District of New Jersey announced Monday."

Jobs chose a good time to step down.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

All Your "Github Projects" Will be Gone One Day (Just Like Skype)
If you have code you wish to share and keep, then start learning how to do so on your own
Fedora Already Lost Its Soul Under IBM
Fedora used to be very strict compared to many other distros and it had attracted very bright volunteers
Links 17/04/2025: Calling Whistleblowers at Microsoft, Slop Doing More Harm Everywhere
Links for the day
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: In Conclusion and Enforcement Action Proceeds Against OSI at the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA)
There's too much to cover in one single part
 
Microsoft's Attack Dogs Have Failed. Now What?
It would be utterly foolish to assume that Microsoft has any intention of changing
To Understand Who's Truly Controlling You Follow the Trail of Censorship (or Self-Censorship)
Do not let media steal and steer the narrative; CoCs are not about "social justice", they're about corporate domination
Microsoft is Still Attacking GNU/Linux and the Net
Microsoft bribed the government using money that did not even exist
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 17, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 17, 2025
Gemini Links 18/04/2025: Pinephone Pro and Linux is too Easy
Links for the day
Links 17/04/2025: Russian Bot Farms Infect TikTok (Which US Government and SCOTUS Decided to Block January 19), US Hardware Stocks Crash Due to Tariffs
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/04/2025: Sticking to Free Software, Smolnet, and Counting the Reals
Links for the day
When You Fail to Filter Your Clients You End Up SLAPPing Reporters on Behalf of Bad People From Microsoft in Another Continent
“American Psycho”
Links 17/04/2025: LayoffBot and Tesla Cheats Buyers
Links for the day
Gemnini Links 17/04/2025: Role of Language and Back to Mutt for E-mail
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 16, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 16, 2025
Trump Authority (CA) With a Trump NSA is All About Security, But Whose?
A "turnkey tyranny", as the NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake loved to call it
Confirming IBM Shutdowns and Layoffs Today
It's not over yet
Gemini Links 16/04/2025: The 2010s Are Calling and Why "Tools Will Not Liberate Us"
Links for the day
You Should Probably Self-Host Your E-mail and Never Use a Web Browser for Mail
Does anyone still believe Gmail is "free"?
Links 16/04/2025: Cliff Lynch RIP, More Attacks on Science (NASA)
Links for the day
StatCounter Shows the Market Share of Vista 11 is Decreasing in Ukraine This Year
Microsoft abandoning Vista 10 users would be a victory for Vladimir Putin
Google Promotes Fake Articles (LLM Slop) Instead of Originals, Relaying Microsoft's Linux FUD Emanating From Microsoft LLMs
Shame on Google for participating in the slopfest
In Some Countries the Largest OEMs Already Dump Microsoft Windows
Windows at 18.9%, Android 60.2%
The "Gold" Rule: Taking Money for Reputation Laundering and Openwashing Under the "Linux" Banner
Seller of expensive toilet paper, Jim Zemlin
LLM Slop Says Slop is "coming for white-collar jobs. Microsoft’s layoffs are just the start"
Look what the Web has become
Microsoft Down From 100% to 10% in Myanmar/Burma
only about 4% of Web requests in Myanmar/Burma come from Vista 11, soon to be the only "supported" version of Windows
Reporting Facts About Violence Against Women Deserves Awards, Not Frivolous Lawsuits and Threats
What is Microsoft's stance on women's safety?
Linux.com as Spamfarm of the Linux Foundation, Partner of the Gates Foundation
They no longer publish articles
When Fedora Said It Was Looking to Integrate "AI" It Meant Promoting Microsoft's Proprietary Spyware and GPL-Violating Slop
When they say "AI" they mean Microsoft
Slopwatch: The Typical Slopfarms and the 'Brian Fagioli Dilemma'
To the Web and to society (exposed to the Web) LLMs are a net negative
It Used to be IBM, Now It's Microsoft (Why You Need to Fire Microsofters or CIOs Working for Microsoft)
Typically the only effective solution is to identity and remove Microsofters from one's project/organisation (before they can bring more Microsofters in)
IBM Closes Offices and Labs in the United States to Open New Ones in India
It's not layoffs per se; they're substituting/swapping veteran employees for lesser-paid ones
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 15, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 15, 2025
Gemini Links 16/04/2025: IndieWeb Carnival, Tinylog RFC, "Focus, the Web and Gemini"
Links for the day